Re: CHAT: return of the long-lost (was: RE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals

En réponse à Andrew Smith <andrew.smith20@...>:

>
> 1a. I used to climb mountains.
> 1b. Used you to climb mountains?
> 1c. I used not to climb mountains, (but now I do).
>
> The interrogative in 1b sounds odd to me, though And's use of exactly
> this
> construction kicked off the discussion, so it's not completely dead. 1c,
> on
> the other hand, is perfectly fine to me, though maybe I would also
> say:
>
> 1d. I didn't use(d) to climb mountains, (but now I do).
>
We've been taught that 1c was possible but rare and mostly litterary. So in
this my teacher was right :)) .

>
> Anyway, if I understand you right, you were taught that 1b and 1c should
> be
> replaced by:
>
> 2b. Were you used to climbing mountains?
> 2c. I wasn't used to climbing mountains.
>
Yep!

> These again are good sentences, but they don't seem to mean the same
> thing
> as 1b and 1c, in my opinion. The sentences in 1 refer to events in the
> past
> which were repeated or habitual, while those in 2 refer to things which
> were
> familiar or the subject had experience in.
>
I didn't know there was a distinction like that. But now that you mention it it
makes perfectly sense.

> Obviously these meanings are related, because things which you do
> habitually
> tend to become familiar to you, but there is a difference (I think), so
> it's
> not really a suppletion, more an approximation.
>
Well, seeing that other possibilities seem awkward to many anglophones, the
solution I was taught is probably not that bad. In my experience, it's better
to use an approximation which sounds grammatical to people rather than a form
which sounds awkward to people, however accurate it is.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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